Members of Parliament serving on the Public Accounts Committee(PAC), of Parliament are calling for the removal of the Auditor-General, Mr Duah Agyeman. The MPs maintain the continued stay in office of the Auditor-General is unconstitutional and a drain on the national economy.
The Enquirer can confirm that there is a letter currently before the Speaker of Parliament that is seeking his advice on the status of Mr Agyeman Duah. The said letter dated, June 5, 2007, is a follow-up to an earlier one on the same issue dated March 5, 2007.
The committee maintained that any attempt at doing business with Mr Agyeman, will amount to endorsing an illegality.The Sillas Mensah-led committee argues that constitutionally, it is wrong to deal with the Auditor-General whose continues stay in office is a breach of the provisions of the fourth Republican Constitution.
“Parliament is supposed to be the bedrock of multiparty democracy, and we cannot be lawmakers and at the same time law breakers”, a committee member told The Enquirer. The Enquirer gathered that Mr Agyeman, who was born in November 1939, have attained the statutory retirement age of sixty years (60) in November 1999, but was appointed Acting Auditor-General on contract in April 2001.
According to the provisions of the constitution, as captured in Article 199, a public officer who has retired from public office after attaining the age of sixty years may, where the exigencies of the service require, be engaged for a limited period of not more than two years at a time but not exceeding five years in all and upon such other terms and conditions as the appointing authority shall determine.
“This man has spent the lat six years in office, in a clear violation of the provisions of the constitution, and he expects us to do business with him”, an MP said.
A member of the committee from the majority side told newsmen that, Mr Duah is causing financial loss to the state, for taking salaries and allowances, even though he is of age, and has over-stayed in office.
According to him, because Mr Duah is a stumbling block to those in the department who are qualified to head the unit. When contacted for his comment, the chairman of the Committee, Sillas Mensah said his biggest headache is the courage to lay before the house reports from the Auditor-General’s department and signed by Mr Duah Agyeman.
“Am worried Members of the august House, especially those from the minority side will reject the report because it is coming from that office and signed by the Auditor-General, who has spent the last 13 months in office illegally”, he added.
